Italy

This is a graduate level course in Fashion Design that is part of the Biennio program (equivalent to the Laurea Magistrale program). The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course is a year-long course that runs over the entire year. Part A, during the fall semester, is worth 6 quarter units and Part B, during the spring semester, is worth 6 quarter units. Special permission to take only part A is required. The course focuses on fashion and communication, and considers the relationship between art and fashion. Students analyze visual phenomena of behaviors present in society and research instruments available for recognizing new trends, such as cool hunting and trend setting. The course includes site specific projects – research projects in the area of space selection and installation projects for fashion events involving project design, photography, video, and applicable software. The course further discusses cross overs between art, literature, cinema, music, and fashion. Emphasis is placed on the role played by media in creating and promoting fashion trends beyond the clothing sphere through modes of communication, types of body language, and social behaviors and sensibilities. The course includes workshops and site visits to exhibitions, seminars, studios, laboratories, and fashion houses. Assessment is based on the completion, presentation, and installation of three personal works. Students also present a binder documenting the various phases of the work, both in digital form and paper based. Students are required to present a short research paper on a theoretical aspect connected to their work that is tied to the required readings.

The course discusses the main aspects and trends of the world economy during the 20th and early 21st centuries. At the end of the course students understand the origin of the most important economic institutions and the features of the economic cycles so far experienced by the world economy. Topics addressed in more detail include the failure of the command economies, the construction of the European Union, the evolution and transformation of financial systems, globalization, and the regulation of the labor market in different countries.

This is a graduate level course that is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course covers basics concepts in the history of Italian cinematography. In particular, the course tackles a number of common focal points that link cinema with the history of Italian culture (method of representation, cultural industry, relationships with other expressive forms). The class starts with an analysis of the concept of “national cinema” for better understanding both the focus and the approach adopted by the lecturer in presenting the Italian case study. After this methodological introduction, the class investigates the history of Italian cinema from the silent era to nowadays. In doing that, Italian films are analyzed both as art form and as economic good. The aim of the class is twofold. On the one hand it investigates an historical path in order to retrace the evolution of Italian films in terms of style, aesthetics, themes, etc. On the other hand, it detects relationships between Italian films, Italian history, Italian art forms and Italian cultural industry. The investigation of Italian film history is supported by the analysis of some films which are particularly important for understanding key-periods and key-genres of Italian film history. The films are: MA L'AMOR MIO NON MUORE (1913) by Mario Caserini, CABIRIA (2014) by Giovanni Pastrone, OSSESSIONE (1943) by Luchino Visconti, LADRI DI BICICLETTE (1948) by Vittorio De Sica, RISO AMARO (1949) by Giuseppe De Santis, LA STRADA (1954) by Federico Fellini, DIVORZIO ALL'ITALIANA (1961) by Pietro Germi, PER UN PUGNO DI DOLLARI (1964) by Sergio Leone, BLOW-UP (1966) by Michelangelo Antonioni, PROFONDO ROSSO (1975) by Dario Argento, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (2017) by Luca Guadagnino, DOGMAN (2018) by Matteo Garrone. The course is structured in lecture/seminars led by the teacher. Sessions are accompanied with power point presentations, video clips, and film screenings. All students are required to attend the class, the screenings and to actively participate in class discussion.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. Globalization has led to a broad transfer of policy making authority from the domestic to the global sphere. This power shift has facilitated review by global authorities of domestic decisions, but it has also shielded many global policy making processes from domestic monitoring and reviewing mechanisms. The course examines the roles of domestic courts and institutions, global tribunals and arbitration panels, global monitoring bodies and other global organizations, private organizations and NGOs in responding to the accountability gaps and opportunities created by globalization. Topics include: presentation and discussion of the different theories on the opposite trends described as internationalization of Constitutional law and “constitutionalization” of International Law; presentation and discussion of four national Constitutional law categories which have changed due to the globalization of political and judicial decisions: popular sovereignty; rule of law; the role of the Parliament; the role of the Constitutional court.

This is an intensive intermediate Italian language course designed for students with a minimum of 3 quarters/2 semesters of previous Italian language (the equivalent of Italian 1B). Grammar is applied through exercises, games, communicative activities, written texts and oral monologues, role play and use of various media. Students express basic and more complex needs which enable them to communicate regarding a variety of topics. Students read texts and write descriptive and narrative texts. Grammar topics covered include: regular and irregular verbs in present, past, past perfect, imperfect, future simple and past and conditional tenses and learning to recognize the remote past tense; adjectives and indefinite pronouns; direct and indirect pronouns; simple and complex prepositions. Student performance is evaluated based on quizzes and a final exam. Texts include a reader provided by Bocconi.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course focuses on how economic thought has evolved over time and introduces students to a critical comparison of the contributions of the principal schools of economic thought: the classical, the marginalist revolution, and its application to the theories of general and partial equilibrium, and the current macroeconomic debate between the neo-classical and the Keynesian school. The course highlights specific theoretical contributions in the field of economic thought and key economists in the international economic debate. Economic thought is analyzed in relation to both its philosophical foundations and political implications and the contexts from which it emerged. The course is centered on the different visions and schools of economic thought that have evolved over time and their ties to the social, political, economic, and philosophical dimensions of their times.

The course addresses the main approaches to the measurement of inequality and poverty, their main trends at the global level, and their fundamental determinants. For each topic the course discusses the relevant theoretical framework, the main measurement issues, and the available empirical evidence. The course discusses topics including trends in inequality and poverty including inequality, the financial crisis, and the great recession, and global trends in inequality and poverty.; measurement tools including the need for criteria, the transfer principle and other criteria for evaluating inequality measures, income distribution functions (Pareto, Normal, and Log-normal), partial ordering methods (stochastic dominance and the Lorenz Curve), complete ordering methods (the Gini index), and measuring inequality using STATA; topics in inequality including the top 1%: capital in the 21st century, the remaining 99% (skills, education, job polarization, robots, trade, and the rise of earnings inequality), migration and inequality, intergenerational inequality (where is the Land of Opportunity?); measurement of intergenerational income elasticity and rank-rank regressions, the Great Gatsby curve, and optimal taxation; and topics in poverty including poverty measures, anti-poverty policies (earned income tax credit and food stamps), and Universal Basic Income in  advanced Countries. The course strongly recommends students have a background in microeconomics, mathematics, and statistics, including basic concepts such as utility functions, derivatives, integrals, probability distribution functions, expected values, mean, variance, and other basic quantitative concepts.

This course provides a comprehensive overview of what blockchain is and how it works. It explores the transition from the accounting traditional ledger to a distributed one and describes how transactions occur under this new paradigm. Insights on how blockchain affect the future of industry and organizations also are covered. The course also covers aspects related to automation of assurance procedures and provides some concepts to develop a blockchain system. Finally, an introduction to the concept of the digitalization of assets and related contract automation which leads to Smart Contracts are discussed. The mission of this course is to introduce concepts and tools to understand the potential of blockchain technology in real world applications.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program and is intended for advanced level students only. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. This course analyzes mass culture in Italy, including the creation, production, circulation processes, and use of the social meanings. Students learn to analyze the phenomena and processes of contemporary life such as its means of communication (new and old media), consumption and production of cultural heritage (music, paintings, newspapers, books, etc.), connections between cultural processes, and social inequalities and the organizational bases of media and artistic communication, the wide range of different forms of consumption, production, organization, financing, and evaluation of cultural heritage and objects. The course teaches how to recognize various phenomena linked to communication and analyze these from an interdisciplinary perspective. The first section of the course focuses on the theoretical state of the art. It reconstructs and defines core concepts from the academic fields of cultural sociology as well as media and cultural studies. It builds a conceptual tool-kit to analyze the socially constructed and historically rooted – yet contested and changeable – meanings of the notions of “Italian”, “Popular”, and, especially, “Culture(s)”. The second section presents the results of various empirical research projects on Italian popular cultures carried out over the last two decades. In particular, it focuses on Italian cultural icons, visual culture, and popular music. It applies the conceptual tool-kit outlined in the first section to a variety of cultural objects and case studies, in order to explore, among others, such issues as the crucial role of increasingly digital media in the process of production, circulation and consumption of popular culture; the role of popular culture and media rituals in the construction of (trans-)national identity; the relationship between popular culture and national politics in Italy.

This course offers a cultural history journey of the Mediterranean, employing the lens of food as a unique entry point. Through critical reflection on the intricate interplay of tradition and innovation in food systems within Syracuse, Florence, and Istanbul, the course traverses the Mediterranean's evolution from antiquity to the modern era. The exploration analyzes the social history of exchanges, interactions, and cultural encounters, emphasizing their pivotal role in shaping sustainable food practices. Drawing upon the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a guiding framework, the course facilitates an understanding of the relationship between innovation and sustainability in contemporary food systems. Key themes covered in the course are as follows: 1) Relational Dynamics: Explore regionalism, cosmopolitanism, and orientalism as distinct forms of relationality that shape cultural encounters within the Mediterranean. These dynamics, whether resulting in rapprochements or conflicts, provide a conceptual toolbox for comparative analysis across the three city modules. 2) Historical Impacts: Discuss the transformative impact of the opening of the Atlantic and the Columbian exchange on food systems and Mediterranean trade relations. Critically analyze imperial networks within the Mediterranean, highlighting the pivotal role of port cities as hubs for economic interactions among diverse cultures. 3) Cultural Encounters: Study various forms of cultural encounters and their implications for the development and transformation of regional and local identities. Through this exploration, students gain insights into the intricate dynamics that have shaped the cultural tapestry of the Mediterranean.